How to Start a Fire in a Cold Chimney

Avoid smoking up your home when you first light a fire in a cold fireplace. The trick is to create a torch with rolled-up newspaper and use it to warm up the smoke chamber before starting your fire.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Gloves
• Gloves
• Gloves
• Newspaper
• Newspaper
• Fire-starting Materials

1. Open the damper fully. Start preparing the fire as you normally would with adequate paper, kindling and seasoned firewood.

2. Slightly open a window in the room where the fireplace is located.

3. Roll a few sheets of newspaper to form a torch. It should be tightly twisted on the end you hold and loose on the end you will light.

4. Light the torch and hold it up to the damper to heat the smoke chamber.

5. When the chimney seems to draw well, light the fire.

Tips & Warnings

• Wear gloves to protect your hand from falling burning embers, and don't look up into the chimney while warming it.

on 11/22/2005 Using a hair dryer on the hot (high) setting has a two fold advantage. First, you are forcing the flue to draft in the right direction and secondly, you are heating the system much faster. Holding a paper torch will often blow ashes and debris back into the room with the risk of setting something on fire.